This is going to be a short post…

Many social networks are still trying to figure out how to monetize while others are monetizing off of them. People are monetizing Facebook apps, selling Facebook apps and Twitter clients. Maybe this is a dumb question, but why not make it part of your API agreement that any company making a profit from your API needs to give you a cut? The APIs could still be free, and if an app makes money, the API provider gets a piece. After all, isn’t the apps success based largely on the technology provided by the API provider? Just seems like it makes sense to me. I’d love to hear your opinion.

Ever heard of Twitter? If you hadn’t, now you have and I’m willing to bet you’ll be hearing it a lot more.

Twitter in a nutshell
Twitter is a messaging platform, also referred to as micro-blogging. Information is exchanged between users in the form of messages comprising 140 characters or less. Updates are sent and received via web, SMS or third party applications like Twhirl. The basic idea is you choose who’s updates you want to follow, and others choose to follow your updates. Updates are fed into your feed where you can see what the people you follow are doing. Conversely, your updates are sent to your followers feeds.

Twitter is used in different ways by different people. It’s used as a way to let your friends know what you’re doing at any given moment. It’s a way to reach bloggers and opinion leaders. It’s a way to position yourself as an opinion leader. It’s great for driving traffic to web pages. It CAN be a great tool to use in a social media marketing campaign, IF it’s used properly and not abused.

More than anything, Twitter is a community. It’s a community of people who are passionate. Many are bloggers, all are influential communicators to some degree or another. Twitter enables word of mouth to spread at lighting speed. It’s a community of people who, if you SPAM them, will at best ignore you, at worst completely slam you. There’s a whole site called Stop Twitter Spam dedicated to helping people Twitter responsibly. It’s also a community of people who will sing your praises, on Twitter, through blogs and via word of mouth if you engage them in a meaningful way.

Some great examples of brands using Twitter effectively
@Zappos - Online shoe company Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. Tony is a much-loved and widely followed Twitter user. He currently has over 4,000 followers. Those 4,000 followers are customers, fans and bloggers. Tony uses Twitter to let people know what he’s up to, as a person, and also as a way to let people know when something interesting or exciting is going on at Zappos. He’s run contests through Twitter, used it to connect with fans in various locations through “Tweetups” (meetups organized through Twitter.) Most importantly, he has engaged the Twitter community in a two-way communication stream. He listens and responds to his followers. He’s so fond of the service that he’s created an entire page on the Zappos website.

@HRBlock H&R Block is using Twitter as a customer support mechanism. As a result, they’ve gotten tons of positive attention from bloggers, like here and here and here.

How to use Twitter responsibly
So how can a brand use Twitter responsibly and effectively? Easy, take the time to get to know the ins and outs of the community and be human. Don’t use Twitter as a means to boast about your brand or service, use it as a tool to interact with the community on behalf of your brand or service.

Have more examples of brands who get it? Have some pointers that I haven’t covered? Think I’m full of it? Comment and let me know.

PS
Feel free to follow me on Twitter

I’m a big fan of niche marketing. I guess you could say niche is my niche. Normally, even when I work with a client who has a very broad audience, I’ll start by breaking it down into smaller niche segments. Why? Niche audiences are passionate audiences. It’s a bit more work up front, segmenting, analyzing, listening to the audience, taking the time to find out what each group is in to, where they spend their time, how they interact. The constant information stream generated by social networks, tools and technologies make locating, listening to and communicating with niche audiences possible on much more granular levels than ever before. If a brand can appeal to a niche audience, and authentically engage them with content that appeals to their affinities, that brand reaps the rewards and will realize a much higher ROI than traditional wide net tactics.

I recently decided it was time to hire a new strategist. I knew I wanted someone who was already getting their hands dirty and understood the social media landscape. I began by reaching out to people I know personally for recommendations as I trust WOM first and foremost. The particular position I’m looking to fill isn’t an easy one, not tons of people out there with that skill set. No one I knew could recommend anyone who wasn’t already doing their own thing or working for someone else. My next step was to post the job. But I wanted to weed out anyone who wasn’t qualified. Posting on a site like Monster or Craig’s List or just about anywhere would have left me with a stack of resumes to go through for people who definitely wouldn’t have been qualified. I’m into niche, so I went niche. The only place I posted the job was on socialmediajobs.com and not only that but the only way I gave anyone to apply was via Twitter, figuring that if the candidate wasn’t on Twitter they most likely weren’t right for the job.

This is what happened: I got a handful of inquiries from qualified people who were on Twitter and got it. But I also got a bunch of inquiries from people who had signed up for Twitter solely to apply for the job. Not only that but they didn’t even bother taking the time to explore Twitter, they didn’t follow anyone, didn’t Tweet anything, didn’t do their research. Obviously Twitter was important to me or why would I have done the application process that way. If one or two of these applicants had bothered using Twitter for a while, following some people, Twittering something that might have caught my attention, even if they hadn’t been on for long, I probably would have at least opened a channel of communication. This is a perfect example of how many brands screw up social media campaigns, they simply don’t bother doing their research, listening to their audience, or acknowledging the importance of their audience’s affinities. They just jump in, broadcast, try to make a big splash and end up annoying people.

When I think about all of the monster catastrophes that so many brands have brought upon themselves by conducting social media marketing incorrectly, a few commonalities start to surface:

1. Lack of or false transparency
2. Failure to engage
3. Invasion strategy

You would think by now these folks would get it, but it seems like many brands are still floundering. What seems to be happening is someone, either on the brand team, or at an agency, or many times both, says “hey, this social media thing is really heating up, let’s do something quick to get in there.” And then a bunch of people with no experience in the space come up with a plan using their traditional media backgrounds to make a big impact in a short period of time. NNNNT (score board buzzer), wrong.

Any successful social strategy needs to take into account the delicateness of the space, this is where people hang out online folks. You are a guest. You can’t just show up and start shouting all sorts of great things about yourself and expect to be accepted. It’s a process, one that takes time, patience and involvement. When brands try to push their way in, all they succeed in doing is at best being ignored, at worst generating a s*/t storm of negative word of mouth, bad press and negative associations. Community building does not happen overnight. But when it does, it’s a hugely powerful catalyst for people to engage with your brand in a meaningful way.

Allow me to make some suggestions:

1. Approach with caution, and respectfully (this one is really important)
The code of conduct for any social marketing effort should take first and foremost into consideration that the brand, an outsider, is asking permission to engage with the community. If the campaign begins by establishing real and well thought out connections with the community, engaging the community, asking for permission and for feedback, it’s much more likely that the community will be receptive.

2. Do your research
There are over 350 social networks, many of them appeal to specific niches. Within the larger networks are smaller groups of people. Then there are applications, widgets, blogs, forums, micro-blogs, video sharing sites, photo sharing sites, well, the list is a long one. It’s important to engage with the proper audience in the right space at the right time. It’s much more than just tossing up a Facebook page, some Facebook ads and creating a MySpace profile. There’s a lot of real digging to do. The power of the web to isolate and target niche audiences in unmatched. Niche audiences are passionate audiences, and are much more receptive when you can deliver content that relates to their affinities.

3. Know the tools inside and out before you use them.
There are so many tools and resources out there, technology, communities, blogs, sites, services, individual influencers, strategies and tactics. I’ve hear too many times people saying things like “Twitter’s getting big, let’s do something on Twitter” followed by “Gee, do you think I should actually be on Twitter?” How are you going to know how to use a tool for a brand if you don’t use it yourself?

4. Engage the community
The social web is all about two way communication. It’s one of the things that can make a social campaign so effective. If you engage with members of the community in a meaningful way they are going to be much more likely to engage their peers on behalf of your brand.

5. People, be transparent.
I mean, we know that by now, right?